Empire Szechuan

It began just fine with a pleasant phone ordering experience. This was followed by a friendly delivery guy and expected pricing for UWS Chinese delivery. BUT…
This food is to Chinese Cuisine what wax fruit is to produce! YUCK!
Skip it unless you have canvas, a palette and some brushes.

Definitely worth the trip uptown. Lots of vegetarian options. Had the dumpling soup, beef broccoli, moo shu chicken and a shrimp option. All vegetarian, packed with flavor and texture was surprisingly spot on.
Relaxed vibe and don’t make you feel like it’s a «turn and burn» service mentality.

Food is pretty bad compared to other Chinese places. Waiters are very rude. The dish I ordered was very poor quality (general tso’s chicken). I asked the waiter to take it away and cook something else and she just rolled her eyes at me.
one of the few times in my life where I left no tip at all.
There are other thousand of chinese restaurants in nyc. Don’t waste your time by going to this one.

Our Sunday dinner. Dependable good food. One of the only good dependable Chinese restaurants on the uws.

Ww brought in teriyaki beef tonight which was so tough and rubbery it was totally inedible. We called but their rude customer service was as bad as the beef. Stay away from this restaurant.

Ordered from here tonight and underwhelmed doesn’t begin to describe it. I ordered steamed dumplings and sesame chicken. Dumplings were soggy and flavorless. Strangely shaped. Chicken was tough and hard to chew. Sauce did not taste like any other place i have had it. Overpriced for the quality. Quick delivery but that’s the reason it even has one star. I wasted my money tonight that’s for sure.

Great value food wine whiskey sauvignon blanc cannot 5.95! Dimsum platter pork chop =D

Honestly, this place was underwhelming. I read some reviews and expected it to be much better. I ordered the Chicken and Broccoli over rice and when it arrived, the rice was cold under the warm chicken. The broccoli was cold as well. Been to better.

They are open late, that’s the only good thing I can say. Delivery man rudely said the tip was not enough… but then my order was missing an item (THAT is why I only tip $ 2 for Chinese — they always miss stuff, ring the buzzer non-​stop obnoxiously, and never read the delivery instructions.) I called to complain and they said they would send my missing item, but never did. They called me back TWO TIMES to ask me to check a tiny little bag that only had sodas in it. It was not there, and they still never sent my stuff.

My friend and I wanted to grab some dinner before catching a movie the 68^th and Broadway AMC theatre on a Friday night and couldn’t find anywhere in the Lincoln center area that was within our price range and not overcrowded. We decided to check on Columbus Ave since I knew that would be a safer bet than the Broadway strip. We stumbled upon Empire and I was thrilled to know that it was a Chinese AND Japanese cuisine restaurant! I love the options available and was only sad not to see a desperately craved for bento box. I saw it on their lunch menu, but not on their dinner menus I definitely should have asked. I’m glad I didn’t because I thoroughly enjoyed my meal. We got vegetable gyozas that were perfectly warmed and a little crispy just like I love them along with ice cold Sapporo beers! As a main entrée, my friend had the chicken teriyaki and I had the vegetable teriyaki with brown rice. I was excited like a kid on Christmas to see the the teriyaki dishes came in a sizzling cast iron skillet and very happy to see there was wild rice in the brown rice too! I wasn’t ready for the super hot piece of broccoli I bit into and burnt my tongue (silly me), but the teriyaki sauce was so good I used it as a nice complement to the rice. In any case, I wish we had more time to have another Sapporo and thoroughly enjoy our meal, but we were in a rush to catch our movie. The server brought complimentary sliced oranges and fortune cookies with our bill and we were delighted by the end to a lovely dinner. Would definitely return if I was in the area for a movie again! We had all that food and drinks for $ 40 perfect for our budget!

come here several timea
pro:
food is always tasty
brown rice offered for fried rice
wonton soup
con:
moo shoo wasnt perfect
nor was
sesame chix

We came here on a Saturday night around ten. The person I was dining with is a fairly new regular here. We were seated right away and welcomed into the establishment. The waiter asked if we lived in the area and was obviously working hard to gain us as loyal customers. I don’t think I’ve had Szechuan cooking before so I wanted to compare it to Chinese, but probably shouldn’t (although I still did in the review too #sorrynotsorry).
I began with wonton soup. It had a lot of wontons and was good. The casing on the wonton was thinner than a Chinese place, no vegetables and smaller wontons-​no complaints, just different than what I’m used to.
I had the orange chicken. I liked it. It had orange peels in it. The person I was eating with agreed with me that their food wasn’t too greasy, which is a big plus. The chicken appeared to be all white meat with no grizzle-​so they didn’t seem to skimp on quality.
Their prices were very fair! Overall we had a pleasant experience and will definitely return.

I made it by 5 minutes for the lunch special. I had the Chicken with Cashews. Not bad at all. They didn’t skimp on the chicken or cashews.
Read some of the negative reviews here. My experience with the staff wasn’t rude.

RUDE RUDE RUDE!!!
Simply not acceptable. I will never go here again. I don’t give just strongly upsetting reviews but I have never been treated like this before. And this was not the first time it has been 3 out of 3 times!

JUST BAD FOOD I really wanted to like this place because it’s open late but I just can’t the quality of the meat is substandard the service is bad and the prices are not on park with the food really bad just has a good location went there for a while but will never go back gets worse everytime

Eh, it’s ok. The sesame tofu is kinda weird. The tofu is small and cube-​shaped, and a little too fried for my taste and the sauce is too gloppy, even when it’s still hot. But still good in an overly decadent kind of way. Plenty of other Chinese places in the neighborhood where you can get a better version of this dish. Their brown rice is the most legit I’ve seen at a shitty Chinese place (not calling this place shitty per se but, you know, that type of Americanized Chinese Chinese restaurant, AKA, shitty Chinese place).
The only Japanese dish I’ve had their was the unagi-​don (BBQ eel rice bowl), which was subpar. Cheap for unagi-​don, but probably ’cause it’s subpar. Generally I wouldn’t order from any place that has both Chinese and Japanese food, or any combination of cuisines; I usually take that as a bad sign. However, this place has something I keep coming back for…
Their special diet menu! Where everything is made sans salt, sugar, corn starch, and MSG. The one thing I loathe about most Chinese restaurants is their over-​use (or just plain use) of corn syrup, sugar, etc. That shit is spreading a blight throughout America. But with this menu I don’t have to worry! Granted, it’s definitely less flavorful than your typical Chinese dishes. However it still comes with sauce. The sesame tofu dish in that menu comes with a sort of Thai-​inspired peanut-​y sauce which is actually quite good. The prawns with snow peas comes with a really good spicy sauce. Also, everything on this menu is calorie labeled! My dreams have come true!
They also have a «taste of zen» menu which I have yet, but want to, try. It’s your typical Chinese dishes (pork with garlic sauce, prawns Szechuan style, duck, etc.) but made with faux meat! The only place I’ve seen that rivals this place in terms of healthy/​vegetarian dishes is House of Vegetarian on Mott.
I would’ve given this place 3 stars, but decided to give ‘em an extra star, because of the last two points I’ve made (plus they’re open ’till like 1 – 1:30am most nights). I just think it’s so cool that they have those special dishes for the health conscious and vegetarians. They really try to appeal to a variety of clientele.
Would certainly recommend giving it a shot!

Sadly this once reliable, while incredibly average, Chinese restaurant has completely bombed. It was a great go-​to for a quick lunch or dinner at my desk. However, the last three meals I have had from here have been disgusting. The last one, yesterday, I threw out without eating because the food smelled off. I ordered steamed pork dumplings which used to be good. I took one bite and threw them away. I also ordered pepper steak which, to be honest, was the most bland and under-​cooked meat I have ever seen or tasted. Again, i took one bite and then threw it away. Such a shame. Will not make this mistake a fourth time.

Best Cold Sesame Noodles in NYC!!!

Went here for lunch after spending some time in the park. Able to get a table at the outdoor seating area to enjoy the weather. The service was okay, the food was decent; definitely got room for improvement. Unfortunately, nothing stands out to recommend.

Decent food, but horrible staff. I’ve been there 3 times in the last 3 weeks, wanting to give them the benefit of the doubt, as the food was ok, but the whole staff always seem to be rude, unfriendly and unaccomadating. Not one good experience out of my 3 visits. They’re just not nice and the food is only ok.